66 THE UTOPIAN COMMUNIST
problem he found by stipulating that if too many workers chose
to work on the same tasks at any one time, such occupations would
be denied any further labor credit by the policy-making adminis
trators until the existing surplus was exhausted. Moreover, if raw
materials were needed for the production of necessities, and the
manufacture of luxuries had become too great, the "hour cost"
used in computing the production of luxuries simply would be
raised above the value of the actual work expended, or a tempo
rary embargo could be placed on the production of such surplus
items.
Thus each individual could "satisfy his particular wants without
destroying the harmony between the desires and capacities of all."
Weitling expected the family Vereine and the organizations of
the Kreis to open factories and warehouses for the production
of such additional articles as would satisfy the tastes and desires of
individual members, and to display them to prospective buyers or
"exchangers." In case of death, all articles obtained by this system
of exchange would revert to the common storehouse, to be offered
for sale a second time. Weitling anticipated such a surplus of pro
duction, and so large a balance in the Kommerzbücher, that the
last week of each year could be set aside for a "week of carnival,"
and all members of the community could be given a vacation. To
provide for the aged and the infirm, extra hours of labor were
assigned to the able-bodied, thus ensuring a kind of old-age pen
sion. Inventors, literary men, and the like received hours of credit
at once for their creative work. Here again it was the duty of the
academies to make sure that no capacity or talent was lost to so
ciety, that "all products of labor for the refinement of the pleasures
of the senses" were evaluated properly, and that public exhibitions
were arranged to display attractively all goods produced beyond
the mere necessities of life. In the category dealing with "the re
finement of the pleasures of the senses," Weitling included the
theater, dancing, music, liquor, tobacco, and fireworks.
By this system, individual initiative and desire would be blended
and reconciled completely with the objectives of communism.
barré
(Barré)
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